Scooping up high-end flavor combos

Published 12:26 pm, Friday, April 4, 2014

Like many others, David Young's appetite for something cold and sweet started when he was little.

"I grew up in the South and loved ice cream," says Young. "When I was a boy, my grandfather would come over and we would eat big bowls of mint chip with my brothers, and it was the best."

But unlike others who see ice cream as just a simple summertime treat, Young, 48, has turned his love into a business venture. As founder and CEO of Marin's Honeymoon Ice Cream that he started less than a year ago, he aims to provide a premium natural product made from local, seasonal ingredients.

"We started off as a soft serve company," says Young, who oversees a staff of seven. "We still serve soft serve on Fridays at our tastings, but it requires a machine. With ice cream, we're able to create a product you can share. We want to create the best product possible, down to the ingredients."

And Young takes his ingredients seriously. Unlike many supermarket ice cream brands that use Holstein cows, the key ingredients in his frozen treats - the milk and cream - come from Jersey cows at a nearby dairy in Sonoma County. Young says the quality, nutritional value and better taste of the Jersey milk and cream outweigh the disadvantages of the pricey product.

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"It's expensive and hard to find and the recent drought conditions have made the price even higher, but it just tastes really good," says Young. "It's like the difference between skim milk and creme fraiche."

After the Jersey milk and cream leave the dairy, it arrives at a San Rafael production facility where a low-heat pasteurization process helps preserve the flavor. Natural stabilizers are then added, before flavors like chocolate, coffee or mint are steeped with the milk and cream.

"In the case of citrus, we use food-grade essential oils instead of fruit because the fruit itself has lots of water," notes Young.

A spinning process then incorporates the milk and cream with locally sourced ingredients to create the Honeymoon Ice Cream seasonal flavors that change every quarter. For the recent winter months, the flavors included pumpkin brittle, winter citrus and chocolate laurel (with laurel Young gathered himself from trees in Marin).

Starting in April, new flavors for the warmer months include strawberry tarragon, apricot crisp and white chocolate mint. Young works with his executive chef Kyle Caporicci to create luscious ice creams that utilize ingredients at their peak.

"Kyle and I decide the menu, but the flavors come from the tastings and meeting people in the stores," explains Young.

The ice cream is then hand-packed, labeled and chilled. Young says it takes less than a week for the milk and cream to leave the dairy and end up in one of the freezer-safe, reusable mason jars that hold each pint of ice cream. The glass jars make Honeymoon Ice Cream stand out from the sea of cardboard containers you find in a store's freezer case.

"We wanted to have something that's sustainable, but we also wanted to present the ice cream in the best way possible. ... You can reuse the jars many different ways - I know kids who have planted seeds in them. In ice cream you're always thinking about taste and how it feels in your mouth, but also presentation."

Catherine Vella, grocery buyer for Woodlands Market with store locations in Kentfield, Ross and Tiburon/Belvedere, says the packaging of the ice cream is definitely part of the draw.

"It has that homemade look that makes you want to bring it to dinner as a hostess gift," says Vella. "I think people who shop here are looking for quality and not what everybody else has, and we try to support local companies."

The fact that this ice cream cost more than the average brand - the suggested retail price is $12 a pint - isn't a problem for many Marin shoppers.

"The price hasn't scared off anyone," reports Vella. "I'm selling it like crazy."

Young is a Texas native who graduated from Indiana University and worked in the tech world before jumping into the food business. He decided to open in Marin because it provides the perfect location for creating top-notch, seasonal ice cream.

"In a hundred-mile radius, we can get everything we need for our product," says Young, who moved to Marin in 2000. "We can't grow coffee here, but we can find almost everything else. Marin has such a tight ecosystem and provides a great petri dish for what we do."

And Young has no plans to stop now. In addition to the pints of ice cream, the Honeymoon brand also offers ice cream sandwiches made out of oatmeal cookies with vanilla ice cream dipped in chocolate and snickerdoodle cookies with coffee ice cream.

This summer, Young has plans to expand the Honeymoon brand to Los Angeles and open a dedicated local production facility that takes advantage of ingredients found in Southern California, like citrus and dates.

While he admits the food business is full of rejection, he believes the best part of the job is seeing customers enjoy his product.

"That's what's fun about the food business - you get that immediate feedback," says Young. "That's different than the tech world. I like to go into the markets and see people buy the product. This couple I saw recently were just delighted and that made my day. It's always gratifying when people think we get the details right."

Five secrets of great artisan ice cream

Honeymoon Ice Cream founder and CEO David Young explains the five key elements that make his natural, gourmet ice cream different from most supermarket brands.

-- Flavors and ingredients that are transparent: "We even make our own all-natural gelatin," Young says.

-- Fresh locally sourced ingredients: But the fresh ingredients and the lack of a long list of preservatives does create one limitation: Young says the shelf-life of his product is six months.

-- Gourmet production: Each pint of ice cream is hand-packed in San Rafael.

-- Seasonal flavors: The flavors change depending on what is in season, so the product always tastes fresh and customers can enjoy new taste profiles.

-- Community involvement: Young and his staff hold regular ice cream tastings in Marin, where customers can enjoy a sundae, mingle with friends and try new flavors.

For a list of Marin stores that carry Honeymoon Ice Cream, updates on the latest tastings in Marin or to order ice cream for home delivery, visit www.honeymoonicecream.com.

Jeannie Matteucci is a North Bay freelance writer. E-mail InMarin@sfchronicle.com. This story ran in the Sunday North Bay Zone

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